Plant protection unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) consist of light and small UAVs with pesticide spraying equipment. The advantage of UAVs is using low-volume spray technology to replace the traditional large-volume mass locomotive spray technology. Defoliant spraying is a key link in the mechanized cotton harvest, as sufficient and uniform spraying can improve the defoliation quality and decrease the cotton trash content. However, cotton is planted at high density in Xinjiang, with leaves in two adjacent rows seriously overlapped, making the lower leaves poorly sprayed. Thus, the defoliation effect is poor, and the cotton quality is degraded. To improve the effect of defoliation and reduce the losses caused by boom sprayer rolling, the effect of defoliant dosage on defoliation, boll opening, absorption and decontamination in cotton leaves and the effect of spraying volume on absorption and decontamination in cotton leaves sprayed by UAVs are studied. The pooled results indicate that plant protection UAVs could be used for cotton defoliants spraying with a twice defoliant spraying strategy, and the defoliant dosage has no significant effect on seed cotton yield and fiber quality in Xinjiang. The residue of thidiazuron in cotton leaves reaches the maximum at four days after spraying, the residue of diuron in cotton leaves reaches the maximum at one day after second spraying. The thidiazuron and diuron residues are increased with spraying volume at rang of 17.6-29.0 L/ha. When the spraying volume is less than 17.6 L/ha, the residue of thidiazuron and diuron is reduced. The research results could provide a reference for further optimization of the spraying parameters of cotton defoliant by plant protection UAVs.

Preclinical Research The genus Ferula (Umbelliferea) is widely distributed across Central Asia and the Mediterranean. Some plants of the genus Ferula have been used as sources of pharmaceuticals for centuries. Ferula is a rich source of biologically active compounds, including coumarin derivatives, sesquiterpene-substituted compounds, daucane esters, humulane, and germacrane compounds, aromatic lactones and disulfide compounds. Therefore, utilizing these bioactive constituents with antimicrobial and insecticidal effects not only can provide a new strategy for developing drug and green pesticide, but also protect endangered plant resources. In the present review, research advances on the bioactive constituents of the genus Ferula the plant sources. Drug Dev Res 78 : 321-331, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The copper catalytic azide and terminal alkyne cycloaddition reaction, namely “click chemistry”, gives a new and convenient way to create l,4-disubstitutd-l,2,3-triazoles. In this work, 2-pyrrolecarbaldiminato–Cu(II) complexes were established as efficient catalysts for the three-component 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction of arylboronic acid and sodium azide (NaN3) with terminal alkynes in ethanol at room temperature to 50 °C, 1,4-disubstituted 1,2,3-triazoles were synthesized. Following the optimized protocol, two series of new aryl-1,2,3-triazole-β-carboline hybrids have been designed and synthesized, and the chemical structures were characterized by 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). All of the target compounds were evaluated in vitro for their antifungal activity against Rhizoctorzia solani, Fusarium oxysporum, Botrytis cinerea Pers., sunflower sclerotinia rot, and rape sclerotinia rot by mycelia growth inhibition assay at 50 μg/mL. The antifungal evaluation of the novel hybrids showed that, among the tested compounds, 5a, 5b, 5c, and 9b showed good antifungal activity against sunflower sclerotinia rot. Specifically, compound 9b also exhibited high broad-spectrum fungicidal against all the tested fungi with inhibition rates of 58.3%, 18.52%, 63.07%, 84.47%, and 81.23%. However, for F. oxysporum, all the target compounds showed no in vitro antifungal activities with an inhibition rate lower than 20%. These results provide an encouraging framework that could lead to the development of potent novel antifungal agents.

For the first time, a novel series of tschimganin analogs were designed, synthesized, and evaluated for their insecticidal and fungicidal activities. Their structures were characterized by 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR and HRMS. Some of these compounds displayed excellent insecticidal and fungicidal activities, suggesting that they have potential to be used as bifunctional agrochemicals. Compound 3d and 3g with electron donating groups showed better inhibitory activity and growth inhibition activity towards Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner). The properties and positions of the substituents on the benzene ring have an important influence on the acaricidal activity of tschimganin analogs. Topomer comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA) was employed to develop a three-dimensional quantitative structure-activity relationship model for the compounds against Tetranychus turkestani Ugarov et Nikolski. It was indicated that higher electronegativity was beneficial for acaricidal activity. Moreover, compound 3r having a 2-hydroxy-3,5- dinitrophenyl moiety displayed a fungicidal spectrum as broad as azoxystrobin against these phytopathogens.